J.K. Rowling’s charity, Lumos, has won the Charity of the Year award at the 2015 UK Charity Awards. They sent out an email message on the win, which can be read below:

Lumos is honoured and delighted to have won the overall Charity of the Year award at the prestigious UK Charity Awards 2015, held in London on 18 June. It is still sinking in that we have won the top prize in a competition that attracted initial entries from nearly 200 of the UK’s best charities.

Our entry was based on our long-running project to create a new and truly inclusive education system in Moldova for thousands of children with disabilities. That project, and our wider European work, so impressed the judges that they chose Lumos not only as the best charity in the International Aid and Development category but also as the best overall in a finals event featuring a shortlist of 30 excellent UK charities.

Lumos CEO Georgette Mulheir and Lumos Moldova team director, Dr Irina Malanciuc received the awards. You can read a report about the event, with pictures and comments from Dr Malanciuc, whose team have worked tirelessly for years to improve the lives of Moldova’s children, on the website of the organisers, Civil Society Media here.

Thank you to everyone for supporting our work. You have recognised the importance of transforming the lives of eight million children worldwide living in orphanages and institutions. This award is further recognition of this vital issue and we hope it will help us to be even more successful in helping those children.

Georgette Mulheir from Lumos said:

“We are utterly delighted!There are 8 million children living in institutions around the world they are forgotten. Most of those children more than 80% have living parents who love them and want them but have been forced to give their children up because of poverty disability and discrimination. This is a completely solvable problem and by 2050 we are confident that there will be no more children in institutions”